Nintendo Cancels NES Remix Contest Due To Exploit

Shortly after the reveal and release of NES Remix for Wii U, Nintendo issued a challenge asking players to set their fastest times in Remix I Stage 4 “Collect all the coins!”. Unfortunately, the event has been cancelled after players discovered an exploit to set faster times.

The director of the game, Koichi Hayashida, announced the challenge on the Miiverse, and issued a statement yesterday cancelling the challenge and apologizing:

Hello Everyone. Thank you very much for participating in this event. Unfortunately, we confirmed that there is a way to exploit the challenge to achieve a faster time. In the interest of being as fair as possible, we decided to terminate the event without recognizing the fastest time. We know that you dedicated a lot of time and effort towards achieving your fastest time possible. We sincerely apologize for this matter, particularly because the vast majority of people played fairly. We appreciate your understanding. Thank you.

Outside of Nintendo paying special recognition to the fastest time, there was no tangible reward for setting the best time. Apparently, the exploit involved repeatedly pausing the game while playing the level. To read our review of NES Remix, head here.

Our TakeNintendo is a perfectionist developer, and it's situations like this that prove that. Nintendo wasn't offering money or Nintendo merch for the best time, it simply wanted to recognize the best time, and when this exploit appeared, it shut down the contest. Nintendo only wants to do it right, or not do it all.